The Legacy System explained: challenges, perks and rewards

· ForeverDB

Forever’s account-wide Legacy System gives you a Legacy Point for each of 65 challenges. Each character can spend up to 16 points on perks at launch, and your account total unlocks cosmetic rewards.

The Legacy System is a new account-wide, horizontal progression system in World of Warcraft: Forever. Blizzard says it focuses on exploring everything the game has to offer, rather than on power progression alone. It has three parts: Legacy Challenges, Legacy Perks and Legacy Rewards. Here’s how they work, based on Blizzard’s Get to Know the Legacy System article and the BlizzCon Deep Dive panel.

The system encourages levelling several characters of different classes and professions, but you don’t have to make alts. Blizzard says every character advantage can be unlocked on a single character.

Unlocking it

You get access as soon as you earn your first Legacy Point. For most players that will happen when their first character reaches level 25, but reaching 150 in a non-gathering primary profession or exploring the entire world map also works. Open it from the Legacy icon (the shield on the menu) or with the default hotkey, Y.

Legacy Challenges

Legacy Challenges work like achievements, but they focus on character progression. There are 65 in total, split into six categories, and each one gives one Legacy Point. Points are shared across your Battle.net account and can be used by all your non-Hardcore characters.

  • Classes (27 points): reach level 25, level 45 and level 60 with each class.
  • Tradeskills (18 points): reach 150, 225 and 300 skill in each non-gathering primary profession.
  • Player vs. Player (12 points): reach ranks 3, 7, 10, 13 and 14 (5 points); reach Exalted with each Battleground reputation (4 points); complete the week 4, 7 and 10 quests in the Field of Honor PvP Season’s Journey (3 points).
  • Adventure (2 points): explore the entire world map on one character, and complete the Lord Valthalak dungeon set questline.
  • Dungeons (3 points): defeat the final boss in all level 15–25 dungeons, all level 26–45 dungeons and all level 46–60 dungeons.
  • Raids (3 points): defeat Onyxia, defeat all 13 Hyjal Summit bosses and defeat all 8 Barrow Deeps bosses.

Legacy Perks

Each character spends the account’s Legacy Points on its own, in three perk trees: Professions, Adventure and Resourcefulness. Each character spends its points independently, so you can specialise one in professions and another in adventuring.

At launch, each character can spend up to 16 points. Blizzard says a single character can earn up to 29 points without an alt: 3 from levelling, up to 6 from tradeskills, 12 from PvP, 2 from Adventure and 6 from Dungeons and Raids.

First, new players will not be so far behind established players that they can’t catch up. Second, 16 points can be reached on a single character, so it is not required to create alts. Blizzard Entertainment, Get to Know the World of Warcraft: Forever Legacy System

Professions tree

  • Working Overtime: better chance to gain a skill point in all tradeskills, including class ones like Lockpicking.
  • Bountiful Harvest: find additional Scarce resources when mining, herbing or skinning.
  • Bartering: lower gold prices at vendors.
  • Performance bonus: sometimes gain extra Merchant’s Favor from the Azeroth Commerce Authority or Durotar Supply and Logistics. Blizzard says these two new Alliance and Horde factions are a major source of new tradeskill activities.
  • Master Chef: a chance for cooking recipes to make extra results.
  • Luremaster: a chance to fish up extra fish.
  • Dedicated Study: a daily cooldown that helps you raise tradeskills faster, or gives free Elemental Essences if they have all reached 300 skill.

Adventure tree

  • Well Rested: a higher rested experience cap, and rested experience builds up faster.
  • Thrill of Adventure: regain a small amount of health and mana after every non-trivial kill.
  • High Alert: better stealth detection outside battlegrounds.
  • Field Guide: shortens the 1-hour cooldown on placing camping features.
  • Field Medicine: shortens the Recently Bandaged debuff, except in dungeons, raids and battlegrounds.
  • Talented: unlock talent points up to 5 levels earlier than normal.
  • Frequent Flier: cheaper and faster flights.

Resourcefulness tree

  • Gourmand: food buffs last longer.
  • The Quick and the Dead: you run back to your body faster when dead, and party and raid buffs are free after you resurrect, to speed up wipe recovery.
  • Reinforce: less durability damage when you die.
  • For Great Honor: more Honor from PvP.
  • Permanence: party, raid and camping buffs last longer.
  • Diplomat: more reputation.
  • Reagent Economy: class abilities no longer need purchasable reagents, and tier 1 camping features need no materials to craft.

Legacy Rewards

Your Legacy Points also add up across the whole account and unlock toys and cosmetics. There are four rewards at launch, and Blizzard plans new ones for each content update:

At the Deep Dive panel, Blizzard added that you can keep completing challenges after hitting the spending cap, for up to 65 Legacy Points at the start. Those extra points count toward the Legacy Reward Track, which gives cosmetic or prestige rewards without a competitive gameplay advantage.

What about Hardcore?

Hardcore won’t be available at launch. When it arrives, challenges you completed on other rulesets won’t show up in Hardcore, but a challenge earned in Hardcore counts on all other rulesets. PvP challenges can’t be completed in Hardcore, so Blizzard plans 12 new Hardcore-specific Legacy Challenges for the Hardcore launch.

Where it goes from here

Blizzard calls the system “in its infancy”. The plan is to add new Legacy Challenges in every content release, along with new perks (in the existing trees for now, and new trees later), Hardcore-specific challenges and perks, and more cosmetics and toys on the reward track. At the Deep Dive panel, Blizzard also listed more ways to spend points, higher spending caps and new columns in the existing trees as things it expects to add over time.

We plan to introduce new Legacy Challenges in every new content release, with new ways to advance your account’s progression. Blizzard Entertainment, Get to Know the World of Warcraft: Forever Legacy System

Point totals, the spending cap and the perk list come from Blizzard’s pre-launch article and can still change before launch.

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